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What Does a Real Foodie Buy at…Country Life Natural Foods?

This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but will share some commission.

I really wonder what my neighbors think when a humongous trailer truck backs into my driveway and slides out the ramp from the back.

Are they moving?

Did they buy a new couch?

What are those boxes?

(takes a minute to read the side of the truck: Country Life Natural Foods)

Is that really all FOOD?

You betcha, neighbors – it’s called buying in bulk and getting together with friends so the truck will come right to you!

Country Life Natural Foods delivers wonderful bulk selections to certain parts of the Midwest. They’re not nearly as widespread as Azure Standard, for example, but for me, they’re a great deal and the best bulk option.

As long as I can rustle up $400 total in an order, the truck comes to my house, no shipping charge.

It’s scary how fast I can get a large portion of that $400 total tallied up with just my own order.

Every time I send out an email asking if people are interested in ordering, they ask, “So what do you buy there, anyway?”

This post is for them…and for me, so I can remember when I run out of things.

If you don’t live in the Country Life area, you might still get some ideas about bulk ordering procedures, and here are some other online bulk ordering options for you to peruse:

Azure Standard: great prices, often recommended by readers, I believe they’re expanding their delivery area, including maybe even near me! Laura at Heavenly Homemakers is an Azure guru and can explain how it works.

Then when I made an order, it came smelling like pickle juice and looking like this:

You’re seeing wet, open boxes of crackers, dented cans, and fragile apple chips crammed in the middle of the box, under the crackers. I thought, “Whaaaa???”

My mad detective skills led me to believe the the UPS man dropped something very, very heavy on my box – then repackaged it so he wouldn’t get caught. !!! Seriously. Vitacost handled the situation well and refunded me for the pickle jar that was missing, and I could have had replacements for the crackers, but I decided that since the inner packaging wasn’t damaged, I wasn’t willing to take the time to send them back.

If you are a first time shopper at Vitacost, you’ll want to use this link to get $10 for your first order (and I’ll get some bucks off as well). Otherwise, you can use my business link, this link.

Mountain Rose Herbs (Link Removed) is another potential online store for certain bulk purchases, and there are many others (I’ll cover Tropical Traditions in the final post of this series).

What I Buy at Country Life

I’ll include current prices (as of spring 2013 when I made my last order) just to give you an idea of how inexpensively you might be able to get some items from a bulk source.

DRY BEANS

Organic black beans, 5# for $1.45/lb. or 25# for $1.15/lb.

Organic black-eyed peas, 5# for $1.65/lb.

White kidney beans (cannellini), 5# for $2.30/lb. (although I usually just use Great Northern or navy beans now, more frugal)

Organic Garbanzo beans, 5# for $2.25/lb. or 25# for $1.90/lb.

Organic Great Northern beans, 5# for $1.70 or 25# for $1.40/lb.

Organic kidney beans, 5# for $1.70 or 25# for $1.40/lb.

Green lentils, 5# for $1.40/lb. or 25# for $1.10/lb. (organic is $1.90 and $1.60 respectively)

Organic navy beans, 5# for $1.50/lb. or 25# for $1.20/lb.

Organic pinto beans, 5# for $1.95/lb. or 25# for $1.65/lb.

Now that I’m writing those out, I can’t wait to get them all in my price book – some are considerably higher than I expected, although any price in my head is probably not for organic, so I have to take that into account. For conventionally farmed dry legumes, I hate to spend over $1/lb., but maybe that goal is outdated. I used to get lentils for 20c/lb. at Save-a-Lot about 6-7 years ago! Sigh…

I took this photo as an example of containers that I save for dividing up 25# bags of beans or grains. My oatmeal goes into about a dozen or more actual oatmeal containers that I saved from when I was buying it at Save-a-Lot. It’s just too convenient!

Walnuts (use the code STEWARDSHIP for 10% off at that site!), $6.75/lb. (Costco better deal)

Organic flax seeds, $1.75-2/lb.

Sesame seeds, $2/lb. or $3.25/lb. organic

Sunflower seeds, raw, $1.75/lb. or $2.70/lb. organic, 5# bags

dried fruit

Unsweetened banana chips, 2# for $2.50/lb.

Coconut chips, $2.85/lb.

Coconut, medium (like shreds), $2.75/lb.

Coconut, macaroon (very finely grated), $2.75/lb.

Both are a much better deal, by more than a dollar a pound, than Tropical Traditions!

Dates, pitted, 5# at $3/lb, 15# at $2.50/lb. (Costco would be better at both sizes! This is new information for me!)

Raisins, organic, $2.10/lb. for 30# box, which we go through in far less than a year (that’s scary), and I also just realized that the organic raisins at Costco are only $2/lb. THAT is why it pays to make a price book! I’m so glad I made that Monday Mission for MYSELF!

Organic figs, $4.25/lb. – might have been a better deal at Costco too!

Organic prunes, $4.75/lb., unsorbated prunes, $3.50/lb.

grains and starches

This is what got me started at Country Life, when the oatmeal price beat out Save-a-Lot, which was already kicking Meijer’s behind! Rolled oats, 60 cents/lb. for 25# bag, 95 cents/lb. for organic 25#

I’d get just about any flour at Country Life if I didn’t have a Nutrimill (link goes to Amazon) already; many are not certified organic but “certified chemical free” which is a great less expensive step

Organic coconut flour (use the code STEWARDSHIP for 10% off at that site!) (use the code STEWARDSHIP for 10% off at that site!) is $6/lb., better deal at Tropical Traditions

Organic hulled white buckwheat, $2/lb. for 5#, $1.65/lb for 25# (this is to grind into flour and make buckwheaties, soaked and dehydrated whole groats)

Country Life’s whole grains for grinding are great and generally have very competitive prices: spelt, Kamut, all kinds of wheat berries, millet, and more.

Yellow organic popcorn for less than $1/lb. for a 50# bag, $1.40/lb. for 5#

Organic long grain brown rice, $1/lb. for 50#, $1.35/lb. for 5# (Costco turns out to be 5c more for the 12-pound bag vs. Country Life’s 50#…but since brown rice really shouldn’t be around as long as my 50# bag is taking us to get through (16 mos. already, darnit!), this is not a good deal. Costco, here I come!)

baking

spices

Lots of spices are good deals, but you just need to know your other sources and price check. My favs include:

Cinnamon

Cardamom (crazy good deal)

Chili powder

Cumin

Irradiating Spices

This isn’t the time or place to go into irradiation and why, since it’s very easy to do, I choose to avoid it whenever possible, but I did ask at Country Life and found out that about half their spices are irradiated while the others are not.

Here is the list of spices that ARE irradiated at Country Life:

whole anise

whole bay leaves

whole carraway seed

whole celery seed

chives

cilantro

ground and whole cloves

whole dill seed

whole dill weed

whole fennel

gran. Garlic and garlic powder

whole marjoram

parsley flakes

green and red bell peppers 🙁

whole rosemary

whole savory

whole thyme

turmeric

I asked at Costco just this week, and they answered:

“None of the Kirkland Signature spices are irradiated. It is steam sterilized.”

I need to do some more questioning, because first of all, the spices I have from there are largely McCormick brand. Secondly, can you steam sterilize a spice? Wouldn’t the moisture compromise it? I’m not convinced this is the right answer. She also said that irradiation has to be disclosed on the package, and I’m looking into that. Is that true??

Items I Would Potentially Buy but Haven’t Yet

There are some bars and more “processed” but still healthy options at Country Life that I just haven’t bothered with before, but they look ‘clean’ in the ingredients and a possible fun purchase:

unsweetened carob chips, $2.50/lb.

Oskri coconut bars (yummy!), $18/20 pcs.

Rice thins, brown – GF, simple ingredients, and a better deal than Blue Diamond Nut Thins usually are, but I’d want to taste one before buying a case.

If you’re wondering how long this all took…too long. And my price book still has a LOT of holes, but it should only take 10-15 more minutes to get all the Costco and Country Life prices in there. I just need to print it out and take it to Aldi and/or simply use receipts as I get them to fill in the rest. However – as I noticed as I was going today – I’ve thought I was getting the best deal on a couple items, only to be wrong! So in the long run, I hope the price book is worth it.

What/where do you buy in bulk? How do you make sure you’re getting the best prices?

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post to Amazon, Mountain Rose Herbs, Tropical Traditions and Vitacost from which I will earn some commission if you make a purchase. I have no business relationship with Country Life Natural Foods. See my full disclosure statement here.

About Katie Kimball @ Kitchen Stewardship

I’m a Catholic wife and mother of four who wants the best of nutrition and living for her family. I believe that God calls us to be good stewards of all His gifts as we work to feed our families: time, finances, the good green earth, and of course, our healthy bodies. I'm the founder and boss lady here at Kitchen Stewardship -- welcome aboard!

I was doing some research on irradiation yesterday and I read that packages have to be marked at the first point of sale only. So, in most cases I’m guessing that’s not the package that comes to us as the consumer. I checked several packages from Aldi and Costco (including a bag of almonds) and didn’t see the symbol for irradiation on anything. In fact, I don’t remember EVER seeing it on anything I’ve ever bought! So, I have a hard time believing that the packages we buy at retailers are required to be marked. I’m sure irradiation is more widespread than that… So many things to think about when shopping now-a-days!

I found this in my own research http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/sources/food_labeling.html stating “FDA requires labeling of packaged, irradiated food sold at retail stores.” and “No label is required for food products that contain irradiated ingredients, such as spices, as long as the entire product has not been irradiated.”

The totality of my research seems to indicate that the last statement is for things like meat products, etc (sausage) which may have irradiated spices as an ingredient, but the meat/entire product has not itself been irradiated.

Is there a reason I shouldn’t trust the EPA’s reiteration of FDA requirements? I don’t want to be one of the sheeple! (:

I ordered with friends with them adn was pleased. My only complaint is that when you order, they can’t give you an immediate total or tell you if they are out of something because they may not pull the order for a few days and things change. So you have no way of substituting something else if they are out.

I’m in the Shen Valley of VA and am on the WV run. There is also a SW Va run.

This series is really helpful. I really should make a price book. Anyway, I’m pretty sure those stretch island fruit bars are something like 25 cents each at Costco. Possibly even a little less. I just bought some there and the whole reason I did is I noticed how cheap they are.

I’ve been boycotting Vitacost ever since they proudly advertised “beauty” products containing embryonic stem cells & published an article in their newsletter promoting euthanasia. I won’t give such a company a single cent of my money!

Ack! And I had an email from another reader that Amazon supports gay marriage in a BIG way…maybe I need to get back to just shopping at stores and not online. This sinful world is a pain sometimes! But thank you for sharing..sheesh, euthanasia?! Ridiculous. 🙁 Katie

Ugh! Just saw this since I was reading from a non-refreshed screen until I replied. It is getting so very hard to eliminate all places that go against my beliefs.

There are a few I feel quite convicted to not patronize, Home Depot, JCP, Sears for the most part and now Vitacost. Then again there are easy alternatives, maybe Amazon is a true test. I will need to pray.

There are other places as well that are involved or promote agendas and products with that I disagree, but it seems quite impossible to avoid so I hope by acceptable purchasing products, I’m still staying true to God.

Purchasing according to your moral beliefs and ethics is one of the best ways to change the world we live in. Mother Jones did an article on warehouse wage slaves http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor?page=1. Amazon was the top retailer using this type of exploitative labor. Greenamerica.org is a good source to find products from ethical and environmentally friendly companies. They don’t have a grocery section on their Green Guide, but there are many other items available and lots of great articles and research, too.

Thanks Katie for doing this series. My husband recently took a different job with a substantial pay cut. I’m up late working on the budget and took a break to read your posts. Great timing as my last price book is about 3 years old and now is a great time to update it given my new lower budget.

Laura, could I ask where/when you saw this information? I’m trying to substantiate it but keep coming up empty handed. I do make buying decisions based on our family’s moral/ethical/religious convictions, but I do want proof.

I can’t remember the beauty product with fetal cells. According to COG, Neocutis is the offending brand, and I can’t find it on the Vitacost site now. Not sure if they stopped carrying it or I just don’t know how to find it!

Thank you Laura. Our society has had the mentality that medicine must fight death at all costs. Now some are questioning whether life-at-any-cost is better than quality life. Unfortunately, some are concluding that physician assisted suicide is the answer. I don’t agree with this conclusion. But that has nothing to do with Katie’s post, so I’ll not debate it here. I’m not sure what I’ll do about Vitacost…I’ll have to think about this. If we boycotted every company with whom we have moral/religious/ethical disagreement, we’d soon find ourselves in isolation from all of society.

In the Denver area Golden Organics is great, and similar. I don’t know what their shipping deal is, since you can just go to their warehouse and pick it up yourself if you live close enough. But, I compared prices, and I thought it was funny…the 25# organic black beans, from Michigan, are $0.02 cheaper for us than they are for you!

Thanks for the love. 🙂 We don’t have anything bulk like that here – I was doing a co-op before we moved but it was NOT cheaper. Azure is now only about 1 hour and 15 minutes away, so I’m pestering them to let me be a drop point. 🙂 PS – You’re my food hero.

I thought I’d mention that Frontier has a coop to that you can join to get wholesale prices. They have a fantastic range of quality-well sourced, products from herbs and seasonings, to essential oils, and beauty products. They are an excellent company, I’ve always been very satisfied with my purchases from them. I know I sound like an info-merical but I just never see them mentioned on these sites and I really think they are an awesome company.

Hi Katie, I wanted to mention that I run a food co-op and we order from Country Life Natural Foods. I’ve spent a lot of time on the phone with Chris (their buying agent); he’s wonderful and helpful. I wanted to know about the Michigan honey and it is raw…I actually suspect it is from the Amish just north of CLNF. I wanted to contact them, and there just was no web info on them or phone number. Hope this helps!

Have you checked out Honeyville Grains? http://honeyvillegrain.com/ Their almond flour is much much cheaper than the one you posted, well, if you buy it in 25# quantities. They have 10% off coupons regularly if you sign up for their newsletter.

Please remember that I’m just a gal who reads a lot and spends way too much time in her kitchen. I’m not a doctor, nurse, scientist, or even a real chef, and certainly the FDA hasn't evaluated anything on this blog. Any products mentioned are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please talk to your health professional (or at least your spouse) before doing anything you might think is questionable. Trust your own judgment…I can’t be liable for problems that occur from bad decisions you make based on content found here.

Some posts on this blog contain affiliate links which generate commission if you purchase anything starting with those links. KS also accepts private sponsorships and we are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. More info here.